CNN - GalapagosQuest: Water Scarcity in the Galapagos - March 9, 1999 - 0 views
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Water is a scarce and valuable resource in the Galapagos and always has been. Only a few of the islands have regular springs where people can find water. The presence of water depends mostly on rainfall, which happens only between January and June, the wet season. The amount of rainfall is different from year to year and from island to island. But the greatest variation is a result of altitude. The highlands receive a lot more rain than the coastal areas and are a better place for most plants, animals, and people to live. Most of the underground pools and springs are found only on the older islands, like San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, and Santa María. Here, thousands of years of erosion created pockets and caverns deep underground where rain water and dew could pool and be collected. Patrick Watkins figured this out pretty quickly and managed to survive here for years. Others weren't so smart, or so lucky.
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Back home we take water for granted, even though we know we shouldn't. People here on Santa María know what it's like to not have water for days, to go without showers and to settle for just one glass of water a day. That trickling rock where pirates filled their water casks still keeps Santa María alive. Rubber hoses carry water over four miles downhill to town, irrigating gardens and watering cattle along the way.
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I think that this article has a very important aspect on the water scarcity in the world. It's about a person visiting the Galapagos where water is seen as a very valuable resource. It can pass days before the people living on the Galapagos can drink water again. This made me think about how we (in Sweden) even flush down clean water in the toilet, and then there are people who does not even have clean water to drink every day. Though the article was posted in 1999, which was a while ago, but there is still water scarcity in parts of the world that we need to consider in our daily life. To perhaps donate money to organizations that help these people who have a lack of clean water.
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Yes, indeed. There are few people from Western countries who notice that problem because they do not face with it. Of course there are still many other locations (especially in Africa), in which the residents' strongest desire is connected with scarcity of water.
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In order for people to realize something is to go through it. I think that if governments around the world start supplying a limited amount of water to every house, depending on how many people live in it. this would make people realise how scarce water is and eventually start using it efficiently.